


Lin Bei Fong and the Earth Kingdom Throne

by Keenir



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Gen, Post-Season/Series 03, Pre-Season/Series 04, This will undoubtedly get jossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 03:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2758382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before the queen's nephew was approached, before Su was asked for military aid, they came to ask Lin.</p><p>Just a little thing I wrote up, speculating on a few things...<br/>...what happened between Book 3 and Book 4.<br/>...Pema knew Lin before she knew Tenzin.<br/>...Toph being a hairs breath away from being enthroned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lin Bei Fong and the Earth Kingdom Throne

  
  
Lin Bei Fong didn’t stoop to ask why Lord Zuko had requested a pai sho match over a cup of tea: as her mother had warned her and Su, the answer was in the game.   _You’re opening with a Badgermole Gambit,_ and in response, she replied with a classic Bei Fong counter.  
  
Lin knew she could get most anyone to talk, to explain themselves – even out of uniform, even sans badge, it wasn’t difficult for her.  Lord Zuko was on that short list of exceptions.  
  
She glanced instead at his aide, a boy already starting to fidgit at the tea shop’s door – his Earth Kingdom uniform offering an excuse, given events there.  
  
 _The Bear,_ Lin knew, recognizing what Lord Zuko’s tactics-message was.  Doing him the courtesy of looking him in the eyes when she replied, Lin said, “No.”  
  
“There are few other canidates,” Lord Zuko said.  
  
“Good.  Ask them.”  
  
“You are the best of them all.”  
  
“Because you can’t find my mother,” Lin said, “and my sister runs a rival nation.”   _And my niece is an Air Nomad now.  That still leaves my nephews – you afraid they’re too likely to side with their mom?_  
  
“I knew your mother, Lin.  So understand when I say you would fare better in -”  
  
“I’m Chief of Police for Republic City, officially,” _despite my repeated absences lately, I was re-appointed after what happened to Chief Saikhan._  “And unofficially, I’m the Avatar’s minder.  Why you think I’d want another job on top of those, I can’t imagine.  And my answer’s no.”  
  
Unruffled, Lord Zuko said, “The Earth Kingdom needs your steady hand.”  
  
“My hand is occupied,” she said, refraining from crushing the pai sho tiles into little marbles.  “And as a family friend, I’ll ask you politely to leave, Lord Zuko,” Lin Bei Fong asked of him.  
  
“Very well,” he said, moving one last piece before he left.  
  
Looking at the board now that she was alone with it, Lin saw it was exactly one move away from either a victory for Lord Zuko, or a stalemate between them both.   _Subtle._  


* * *

  
  
After a few more cups of tea, Lin headed back to her desk (which had been kept in reserve for her), and bended all the dust to a single corner of her desk. _Korra might think Su coined that ‘focus on the earth inside it’, but our mom taught it to us…not just with metal._  
  
Disappointingly, there wasn’t much to do there – _everyone’s been keeping the place running in my absence, and nothing needs me seeing to it urgently or even halfway urgently._  
  
She was contemplating turning her desk dust into an effigy of Su, and wondering if that would offend her sister’s sensibilities too, when “Chief?  There’s someone here who’s asking for a word with you.”  
  
Lin’s eyes narrowed.   _Almost everyone asks to talk to me.  The number of people who want a word…_ “Bring them in,” Lin said.  
  
She was willing to admit to being mildly surprised that it was Pema, not Tenzin or one of her few friends that Korra hadn’t met.  “Have a seat,” Lin said, remembering enough about the younger woman to know that she didn’t care to have chairs bended to or from.  
  
Pema brought a chair over from a nearby and vacant desk, and sat down.  “You look well,” she said.  
  
“I can think of people who look worse than me,” Lin said dryly.  “Some of them are still alive.”  
  
Pema nodded.  “You never did like small talk; I forgot.”  
  
“You talk enough for the both of us; don’t worry about it.  What brings you here – or can I guess?”  
  
“I’m not sure you would need to guess.”  
  
“Me and the Earth Kingdom.  Then why are you here?” Lin asked, sure about everything else, but not about that one detail.  
  
“I thought I could talk you into it,” Pema said.  “Or at least explain to everyone else why you don’t want it.”  
  
Lin had a perfectly good frustrated growl raring to go, but could feel it seeping away out one of the spots she had been acupunctured back in Zaofu.  So she said, “Do you remember me explaining why they’d even bother me with an offer like that?”  
  
Pema nodded.   _Long ago.  Before I met Tenzin.  I was one of your rawest recruits here, and you took me under your wing._  “You’re a Bei Fong, which makes you a cadet line of the dynasty that rules Ba Sing Se.”  
  
 _One detail you forgot, but otherwise,_ Lin nodded.  “And, nominally, the rest of the Earth Kingdom.”   _More or less, sometimes only in name._  
  
“And without any of that dynasty left, the cadet lines are all who are left.  Which means you.”  
  
“Not just me,” Lin said.  
  
“But you’d be good at it.  You’d be the great Queen Lin Bei Fong,” Pema said.  
  
“And now I’ve got another reason to say no,” Lin quipped.  
  
“And a Nation of reasons to say yes.”  
  
“Stress.  A Nation of stress.”  
  
Too late, Pema remembered one of Lin’s mini-tales about her mother joining the then-Avatar’s number… _to get away from all the stress and expectation placed upon her._  Pema knew she needed to think of something different if this was to work.  “We were friends, Lin,” Pema said.  
  
“Don’t tell me its as my friend that you want me to be royalty.”  
  
“You already are.  Just not on the throne.”  
  
“Thanks for omitting the ‘yet,’” Lin said.  
  
“I know its not something I know anything about, but -”  
  
“Sure you do,” Lin interrupted.  “You’re Pema.  Mother of the reborn Air Nation, first literally, then spiritually.  You rule them without the need to bend.”  
  
 _Oh.  Okay, if we’re taking **that** argument, then…_   “Then, one monarch to another, I advise you to step up.”  
  
“You’re about to compare me with one of your kids, aren’t you?”  
  
“The stubbornness and crabbull-headedness _does_ remind me of them, yes,” Pema said lightly.  “And of their father…who I’m beginning to think got it from you.”  
  
 _Ah.  Here we go_.  “I was offered it before, and I turned it down.  Nothing’s changed.”  
  
“Nothing except the Avatar, the end of Equalists and Red Lotus and -”  
  
 _The Equalists are still around, regrouping after that revelation about the bender who’d been leading them about by the nose.  We haven’t heard the last from them._  “Feel free to offer my spot to Korra.  Not sure if there’s anything in the Inheritance Rules about an Avatar running the place.”   _Sure as hell would’ve simplified some things._  
  
“Tell you what,” Lin said.  “Would you rather I keep doing my job, or take over the Fire Nation – didn’t we used to say we could run the place better than they’re doing?”  
  
 _Yes we did.  And I learned early on not to say ‘but you aren’t in line to rule the Fire Nation’ because then you’d look at me with that look that nearly had me wondering about your mom and Lord Zuko…pretty sure you were messing with me._  “The vacancy’s in Ba Sing Se,” Pema said.  
  
“And in Republic City,” Lin said.  “I’m Chief of Police, but my chair’s been empty while I was off cris-crossing the world with the Avatar.”  
  
“Lin…”  
  
“Pema.”  
  
“Please for -”  
  
“I have my reasons,” Lin said.  
  
“Tenzin?” Pema asked.  
  
Lin looked at her.   “We have already had this discussion.”  
  
Pema looked down, remembering that quite well.   _The throne had been left open per some archaic Earth tradition to see if the cadets would do better than the royal heir, and I’d been afraid that if you left Republic City for Ba Sing Se, Tenzin would have gone with you.  And you were still my best friend, and one of my few friends._  She looked up to Lin once more.  
  
“I’m here,” Lin said.  
  
“I’ve met the other candidate for the throne,” Pema said.  “Would it help if I said he fewer manners than Meelo?”  
  
“You can describe him til you tire of it – I’m not changing my mind,” though she cracked a smile at that comparison.  
  
Remembering something Tenzin had once mentioned… “If I can find your mother – if I can find Toph – would that change anything?” Pema asked.  
  
Lin hesitated, and had to mull over that a moment.  “It would change some things, yes.  But I still wouldn’t want the Earth Kingdom in the palm of my hand.”  
  
Pema nodded.  “I understand.  Could I invite you to dinner tomorrow?”  Raising one unbendingable hand to forestall an objection, “I will not mention the Earth Kingdom, and neither will anyone else there.  I was going to have some of my friends there, people I haven’t seen for a very long time…and I was hoping you would be there.”   _Some family, but mostly ex-colleagues._  
  
“I’ll try to make it,” Lin said, accepting the invitation.  


* * *

  
  
Lin made her way home, back to her apartment, where she set her things down against the wall.  Standing in the middle of the room, she looked around.   _Everything’s exactly where I put it.  Right where I left it._  
  
She considered calling a chair over to her, then considered going and bringing one over by hand – _like I’d had to do the last time I was here._  
  
Last time…this time… And she considered nominating a cousin for that much-vaunted throne:   _It’d almost be worth it to see Tenzin’s face when he finds out he’s married to the new Earth Queen._  
  
 _But if not; if it has to be **me** …_  
  
With a breath, Lin felt the presence of all the ground-down and ground-up earth which coated her apartment floor, perfectly matching the walls.  
  
It had been one of the few rules Toph had enforced with any rigor: keep a layer of dirt on the floors of your home.   _Not dust, actual dirt.  Not that Su bothers with either.  Trusts her reputation as safest city on earth too much – look how that turned out._  
  
With a thought, Lin brought all the residence’s ground-up dirt to her, letting it drape over her like the gossamer gown it resembled now…like the regal trousers it resembled now…like the royal robes it resembled now.  
  
And it all dropped abruptly to the floor.  “No,” Lin said again.


End file.
